The Land of Pokemon and Graboids
by Galantron
Summary: As Ash and friends are heading for the Nevada Chapter of the American Pokemon League in Elko Nevada, they meet handymen Valentine "Val" McKee and Earl Basset in the little known town called Perfection. But here in this scorched outpost in the Nevada desert, there are also subterranean beasts hunting down everyone. It may be up to Val, Earl, Ash, Misty, and Brock to save Perfection.


It was a sunny day in the mountains near Perfection Valley, a small valley in the Nevada desert. At the edge of a cliff, wearing jeans, a red shirt, a denim jacket, and a straw cowboy hat, a man was just finishing up with taking a leak. His name was Valetntine Mckee, be he was better known as Val. He then walked over to a blue pickup truck where his friend, Earl Basset, in a light blue shirt and jeans, who was sleeping in a sleeping bag in the back of the truck to wake him up. Both of them were handymen. When Val went beside Earl, he then said to him, "Good morning, Mr. Basset, this is your wake-up call. Please move your ass." When Earl doesn't respond, Val then just looks at the cows a few yards from them, and gets an idea. Val makes a grin and jumps up onto the side of the truck, and starts shaking it the truck as he starts yelling, "Stampede! Stampede, Earl. Get out of the way! Get out of the way!" As Val is doing so, Earl begins frantically crawling with his sleeping bag out of the truck, goes into a back flip as he falls to the ground, rolls over and looks to see if there is a stampede. When he finds only a small group of cows feasting on the grass, Earl then said, "You dumb shit." Earl gets up as Val gets down from the side of the truck laughing. Earl says to Val, "I was in a stampede once. 300 head going hell dead for the horizon." Val then asks Earl, "Now, exactly how many cows are required for a stampede, Earl? I mean is it like 3 or more? Is there minimum fee?" Earl then replied, "I wish I'd stampede up your ass." Earl took a lighter from one of his pockets and held it in his mouth as he grabbed for his hat and jacket. Val meanwhile was fumbling around his pockets for a pack of cigarettes. Then after Val got his own cigarette, he let Earl take his own from the pack while Earl let Val light his with the lighter. Earl then asked, "No breakfast?" Val replied, "I did it yesterday. It was balongne and beans." Earl said back, "No. It was eggs. I did eggs. Over easy." Val remarked, "The hell you did. Balongne and beans. It's your turn." Soon enough Val and Earl raised their right hands in a fist and prepared for a round of Rock Paper Scissors. Earl won with scissors while Val lost when he got paper. Val then said, "Well. I guess when I'm your age, I'll forget what I eat too." After they had their breakfast, they got to work finishing up a stretch of barbed wire, and Earl, even though his hands were leather gloved, his thumb got pricked by barb from the wire. He then yelled out in pain, "Oww! God damn it!" More relaxed, Earl then asked Val, "I ask ya, what's a job for an intelligent man?" Val replied, "Well, show me one and I'll ask him." Earl said, "Well, I mean if we're real serious about money, we'd quit being hired hands-." Val said to him mid-sentence, "Handymen, Earl. We are handymen." Earl started again, "Yeah, yeah, yeah. We'd quit this job and find ourselves some real employment." Val then said, " Hey, are you gonna give up all this personal freedom? I don't know." They had finished up the last stretch of wire fence and were heading into town. Val then asked Earl, "So what's on the agenda for today?" Earl replied, "It's garbage day." Val said with disgust, "Oh man! Already? Hey, what's Nestor payin' us?" Earl added, "Fifty bucks. Now that's 47 bucks more than what we got." Val then said, " Burt and Heather's place is closer. Let's do their linoleum today and do the garbage tomorrow." Earl then said to Val, "Nestor's not home tomorrow. Now look, we don't dig today, we don't get paid today. Now, damn it Valentine, you never plan ahead. You never take the long view, I mean now here it is Monday, but I'm already thinkin' of Wednesday. It is Monday, right?" As Val is driving, he then notices someone and their truck in the sagebrush, as he askes, "Hey, who the hell's that? That's not What-His-Name, the grad student." Earl responds, "Naw. He graduated. Must be the new one." Val added, "New one. That's supposed to be a girl." Val turned off the road and headed for where the truck was in the sagebrush. Many sugar thoughts and hopeful suppositions raced through Val's mind as he drove for where the truck was. Val then declared, "You will have long blonde hair, big green eyes, world class breasts, ass that won't quit, and legs that go all the way up." Then after he stopped the truck when they got there, his hopes began to fade away when he didn't see the type of girl he expected to see. Instead he saw, a young lady, who had brown hair and an average build. She then walked up to the passenger side of Val and Earl's truck as she said to them, "Hi. I'm Rhonda. Rhonda LeBeck. I'm up here for the semester." Earl replied, "Yeah, geography." Val corrected him, "Geology." Rhonda then stated, "Yeah. Well, actually seismology. Earthquakes. And you two must be Val and Earl. I've heard all about you" Earl then said, "We deny everything." Rhonda continued, "Hey, listen, I've got a question for you. Do you know if anybody's doing any drilling or blasting or anything like that? Val replied, "Around here? No, Ma'am." Rhonda added, "Well, I'm supposed to monitor the seismographs. Well, you know, they measure vibrations." Val then said to Earl, "Vibrations in the ground." Rhonda continued on, " Yeah. Well, I've been getting some really strange readings. I mean the school's had these machines up here for 3 years, and we've never recorded anything like this. Earl then said, "Well, we'll ask around. You know see if anyone's heard anything." Rhonda said, "Thanks. God, I hope they're not broken. I might have bag the whole semester. Anyway, sorry to bother you." Earl said, "No problem. Nice meetin' ya. Hope you get it all sorted out." Val and Earl drove back to the road on their way to the town of Perfection, leaving Rhonda to work more on the seismographs. Earl then said to Val, "You know, if you wanted, we could, uh, take a look at those, uh, uh, seismographs for her if you want." Val then asked, "What the hell do we know about seismographs?" Earl added, "Nothin'. But it sure might be slick way to get to know her." Val asked, "Why?" Earl replied with a slight hint of annoyance, "Damn it Valentine, you don't go for any gal unless she fits that stupid list of yours from top to bottom." Val retorted, "Well sure." Val replied, "Yeah, and dumber than my hind end. I mean like that, that, Bobby Lindexter." Val corrected him, "Tammy Linbaxter." Earl replied, "Don't matter. They're all the same. Dead weight. 'Ooh. I broke a nail!' Makes my skin crawl." Val then said, "Well, I'm a victim of circumstance." Earl then replied, "I thought you call it your pecker." Then about halfway to Perfection, Earl then noticed 3 people walking close to the side of the road, but walking amongst the sagebrush. He then said to Val, "Hey, look there. Those 3 don't look they're from Bixby." Val added, "Sure don't." Earl added, "Let's see what's up them." Val replied, "Good idea." Val then sped to get close to them. Meanwhile, ahead of Val and Earl, the people that Earl saw in the truck, were in fact, 3 Pokemon trainers. Their names were Ash Ketchum, Misty, and Brock. On Ash's shoulder, was the electric Pokemon known as Pikachu. Together, they were on their way from Los Angeles, California to Elko, Nevada for the Nevada Chapter of the American Pokemon League. Ash then said, "After a few hours of walking from Bixby, I'm already so hungry." Misty added, "Not to mention thirsty." Brock further added, "And not to mention, we're 50 miles away from the nearest town." While the others groaned, Pikachu looked behind them, and he happened to see the dust trail being kicked up by Val and Earl's truck. Pikachu alerted the group to this, "Pika-Pika." Ash and the others turned around as Pikachu got off Ash's shoulder and pointed towards what he saw. Ash then asked, "What's the matter, Pikachu?" Pikachu conitnued to point towards the dust trail. Ash looked to where Pikachu was pointing and soon saw the dust trail himself. Ash then said, "I see what's got Pikachu all stirred up. Over there. A dust trail." Misty then said with a bit sense, "Well, We are near a road." Brock then asked, "But who would ever be driving all the way out here?" Then they heard, unknown to them, Earl's voice calling to them, "Hey, you there. Wait up a minute." Misty then said, "I think they want us to stop." Ash added, "Alright. Besides it looks like they would catch up to us anyway." Pikachu then returned to Ash's shoulder as Val and Earl's truck stopped right next to them. Dust enveloped Ash and his group. When the dust settled down, they came closer to the truck. Earl then asked them, "What the hell are you kids doing out here?" Val asked, "Yeah. Are you lost or something?" Ash replied, "We're not lost. We're on our way to Elko, Nevada." Earl then asked again, "Where did you three set off from?" Brock answered, "The town of Bixby." Val then added, "If you're tryin' to get to Elko, out here, you're in a bad fix." Misty asked, "What do you mean?" Earl replied, "The north end of the valley is the end of the road." Val added, "To the north, there's the cliffs. To the west and east, very rugged mountains. The highway is on the other side of the mountains to the east." Earl added, "And the only way you can get to that highway, is by going back to Bixby." Ash then said in dismay, "It looks we all took the wrong turn." Earl then said, "But before you three start headin' back to Bixby, you should all have lunch at Walter Chang's store in Perfection." Ash and the others were perplexed. Brock said, "But Perfection isn't on the map." Val then added, "That's 'cause it's so far out in the middle of nowhere." Ash then said, "Well then, I guess we could have lunch in Perfection before we head back to Bixby." Earl said, But before head for Perfection, we should introduce ourselves. I'm Earl Basset. This is Valentine Mckee." Val added, "But everybody just calls me Val." Earl asked, "So, who are you?" Ash replied, "I'm Ash Ketchum. I come from Pallet Town. I'm a Pokemon trainer seeking to become the greatest Pokemon master." Misty added, "And I'm Misty. I'm a Pokemon trainer and a gym leader from Cerulean City." Brock said, "I'm Brock. I'm a Pokemon gym leader from Pewter City and I wish to become a Pokemon breeder." Ash added, "This is one of my Pokemon, Pikachu." Pikachu then said his name with his cute voice, "Pikachu." Val asked, "So what are you heading to Elko for?" Ash replied, "We going there to attend the Nevada chapter of the American Pokemon League." Earl said with astonishent, "Now that's major." Misty asked, "So what are you both?" Val replied, "Well, little lady, we are handymen." Brock said, "I get it." Earl then said, "So, we can get you kids to Perfection. There's room in the back of the truck if you want us to give you a lift." Ash said, "Well, since we don't know where Perfection is, you can may as well give us a lift." Misty asked, "How far are we from Perfection?" Val replied, "About 10 miles. You three can go ahead and climb in the back." Earl added, "But just hold on." Soon enough, Ash and the others cilmbed on board the back of Val and Earl's truck and were on their way to Perfection, a small scorched outpost in the middle of the Nevada desert, home to 14 people. For events later to come, Val and Earl's actions for helping out Ash and his friends, would later be repayed by the later friendship between Val and Earl on one side, and Ash, Misty, and Brock on the other side.


End file.
